This invention relates to a novel golf club carrier for carrying only a few (optimally three) clubs selected from a set of clubs (e.g. fourteen) contained in a larger or parent golf bag.
Heretofore, there have been marketed golf clubs or carriers designed to carry only a limited few number of golf clubs. Most of these compact bags include a conventional type shoulder strap and/or luggage-type hand grip. Many are provided with a foldable stand to maintain the bag in semi-upright position, while others are equipped with about a 6xe2x80x3 long ground spike to maintain them in upright position. Most of these compact light weight bags and club carriers are merely for the purpose of permitting a golfer to carry only a few clubs around a course, rather than having to lug a larger and more cumbersome standard bag.
The idea of providing a canvas bag of limited club capacity and using it in conjunction with a full size bag mounted on a golf cart to carry a few selected clubs to a fairway location remote from the cart is, per se, also known.
In addition, the use of a single golf tube with a clip on its upper lip to clamp-on to the rim of a golf bag for the sole purpose of carrying a putter (single club) outside the golf bag is known. In use, the golfer removes the putter from the tube, leaving the tube itself clamped to the rim of the bag.
In general, the invention comprises the combination of a slender, elongate, tubular body portion into which may be loaded a few clubs (optimally three) selected from a larger set of clubs contained in a standard size golf bag, and an elongate hooked-shaped handle which is designed to serve multifold functions to be described.
Besides providing the user with a comfortable and balanced hand grip by which to carry the elongated unit, with its selected clubs loaded therein, the elongated handle provides a hook by which the unit can be hooked over the rim of the larger or parent golf bag when the latter is mounted in upright position on the back platform of a conventional motorized golf cart.
In one embodiment, the body portion of the carrier is composed of three tubes of a size to receive virtually all of the small and larger size club grips on the market today. The outer casing or shell of the carrier defines a substantially triangular shape of unique optimal shape, size and general configuration to be dropped through one of the partition openings usually built into the top opening of conventional golf bags proportioned to carry a full complement of clubs. Thus, when the carrier is not in use, it can be stored and carried totally nested inside its parent bag without unloading or removing the few selected clubs from the tubular body.
In play, the golfer, after having strapped the parent bag in upright position on the platform of a motorized golf cart, lifts the carrier from its nested position interiorly of the bag and hooks the handle over the rim of the bag and relatively deep into the bag interior. Assuming the carrier has a three-club capacity, a typical example might be as follows: The golfer knows from his own experience, for instance, that he will want to use one or more of three particular clubsxe2x80x94perhaps a 7 iron, an approach wedge and a putterxe2x80x94when he comes within his approach distance from a green, e.g., 75-125 yards out. Thus when he arrives at his destination within his approach range and has to leave the cart to walk some distance to where his ball lies, he can, with a single arm motion, grasp and lift the loaded carrier from its hooked suspension over the rim of the bag and march off fully equipped to hit any shot he or she may reasonably be expected to encounter from fairway to green.
When the golfer reaches the spot where his ball lies on the fairway and it is time to lay down his clubs to take his shot, he lowers (or lets fall) the carrier to lie flat on the grass with the hook-shape handle facing up. When the golfer has concluded his shot he may, without stooping over or bending from the waist, use the head of the club he has in hand to engage the underside of the hook and, by simple arm motion, raise the carrier to near waist high level within easy grasp of the handle by the golfer""s free hand (see FIG. 9). The ability to swiftly lift the carrier from ground level using the club in hand, eliminates entirely the need to provide a ground spike or collapsible stand to try and maintain the carrier upright instead of letting it drop to the ground when the golfer has to take his next shot.
After each shot the golfer, having lifted the carrier from lying on the ground to stand-up position, can conveniently reinsert the free club back into the carrier or the like, during his continued walking to the next stop, where the same process is repeatedxe2x80x94all this without the loss of any measurable time as would be the usual case if the golfer had to repeatedly lean completely over and gather together and pick up a plurality of individual scattered clubs deposited on thexe2x80x94oftentimes wetxe2x80x94grass while taking the next shot.
Using the present carrier, the golfer, after putting out, can simply walk over to the edge of the green, pick up the carrier (using the putter to hook-into the handle without bending over). Upon returning to his cart, the carrier, fully loaded, is again hooked over and suspended from the rim of the parent bag in readiness for immediate use when needed on the next hole.
Golfers playing on public or private courses either are, or should be, concerned about wasting time and thereby slowing play on the course. The use of the present invention in the way and manner given in the above example may realistically save a golfer up to 15 to even 20 minutes per 18 hole round in several ways as may be demonstrated: Firstly, the ordinary golfer when he gets within his approach range and is compelled to leave his cart and walk a distance from the cart path to his approach shot range, will usually take with him at least two or three clubs in addition to his putter. Typically when the cart stops, the disembarking golfer will walk around to his bag at the back of the cart and go through the club selection process almost always involving a visual search of all the clubs in his bag, some of which are turned to make difficult immediate identification, others of which are hidden under other clubs or head covers, etc. In any event this selection process occurring on the first hole and every hole thereafter, will waste a significant amount of time because our golfer subject will end up searching out and extracting from the parent bag the very same clubs he would have selected at the first tee and pre-loaded into the carrier. Whatever, the amount of wasted time in the selection process on the first hole, one can safely multiply this by 18.
The above repetitive xe2x80x9cselectionxe2x80x9d process is but one of several major time-wasting repetitive processes absent the availability and convenient use of a golf carrier embodying the features of the present invention.
By way of further example, the same golfer alluded to above will waste more time in what may be called the xe2x80x9creturn the clubsxe2x80x9d protocol, whereby after putting out each hole the golfer takes time to replace the selected clubs back into proper position in the parent bag to later proceed to go through the xe2x80x9cselectionxe2x80x9d process described above all over again.
Perhaps the biggest time-waster of all, as well as a physical energy waster, involves the golfer hand carrying three or more approach clubs to the point on the fairway where he is going to make his first approach shot, and arriving at the spot, he selects one club to shoot with and scatters the remaining two or three clubs on the groundxe2x80x94often wet grass. After making his first approach shot, he must take the time and energy to scrape the clubs on the ground together and trek off to the next shotxe2x80x94just to repeat the whole process as many shots as it takes per hole to reach the green where all the clubs, save the putter, are again scattered.
Use of a golf carrier embodying the present invention can totally eliminate, for all practical purposes, the time wasting xe2x80x9cselectionxe2x80x9d and xe2x80x9creturn the clubsxe2x80x9d processes, as well as the back-breaking and time-consuming procedure of scattering the clubs and gathering them up again multiple times during each hole.
Conserving and reducing playing time on the course is not only beneficial to players, but is much sought after by the starter of any public or private course. The faster the play, the greater the course capacity and income.
A carrier embodying the present invention with its minimum of three clubs loaded therein can be slidably inserted through a partition opening of the parent bag and comfortably nested wholly within the said bag""s interior during periods of transport and storage. This feature is made possible because the carrier body is generally made to define a rounded triangular shape in cross-section with rounded corners and dimensioned to be slid through at least one of multiple shape and size partition openings present in the conventional 8xe2x80x3 to 10xe2x80x3 diameter golf bag. The unique rounded triangular shape and dimensioning permits the carrier body to be rotated around its own lengthwise axis so as to optimally accommodate its own relatively longer and shorter dimensions to the maximum longer and shorter dimensions If of the partition opening into which the carrier is being inserted.
Further advantages obtained include the ability to keep clubs removed from the larger bag from having to lie scattered on wet grass and thereby be exposed to dampness as well as to eliminate the very significant waste of time and effort required of the golfer to repetitiously stoop over to gather up the clubs, only to scatter them on the ground again when the golfer comes to make his next shot.
Another object and advantage is that the particular design of the hook-shaped handle and its location of attachment to the carrier body permits a user to pick up the carrier and clubs loaded therein from the ground to within hand reach by merely engaging and lifting the handle with the head of the club the golfer holds without the golfer having to stoop or appreciably bend from his waist.
Because the slim and uniquely configured triangular-shaped carrier body may be inserted in the parent bag in nested position, there is no reason why the carrier need be stored or transported separately from the parent bag. This, in turn, leads to the further advantage of never running the risk of separating the few selected clubs loaded in the carrier from the full set of clubs of which the few are a part.
Also, because the carrier may be nested in the parent bag fully loaded with it several selected clubs, any appreciable crowding of clubs in the bag is avoided because the carrier takes up only a small fraction more in volume displacement than the loaded clubs would occupy if the selected clubs were removed from the carrier and placed individually in the bag.